Sandy Duncan, the amusingly-named former CEO of Xbox Europe, isn’t exactly a popular fella these days. In fact, what he’s preaching is way, WAY, out of the mainstream. And what he’s got to say is going to downright kill you–he believes that console gaming will be completely dead before 2020 rears its head.

It’s not that we’re all going to up and decide that only one console should win, and thus completely destroy the concept; it’s rather that Duncan believes that one standard format will inevitably win out, and gamers, tired of buying a console for a handful of games, will flock to one centralized platform where digital distribution–on par with Xbox Live Arcade and similar services on Wii and PS3–will provide all the games we could ever want.

Of course, the fact that Duncan currently sits on the executive board of a company whose entire business model revolves around digital distribution may have something to do with it, but still. The idea is tempting. No more missing out on a game you’d like to try because you didn’t shell out five hundred bucks for the RIGHT system. That and a single platform for developers to produce to might streamline things. Just take a look at the PC for a moment–the PC has been the PC since the eighties, it just got more powerful with each passing iteration. But a game you could play on the PC in 1980 could still be played in 2008. In some cases, anyway…but still!

Though the death of the console is something of a pipe dream–there’s no way anybody in the console war is going to get out until they just plain old can’t fight any more. Like Sega. Or Turbografx.

And until the day when all are one, try the Sony trivia on Kwanzoo. Got to start somewhere!

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